Smalley takes two-shot lead into final round of US PGA Championship but big names lurk | US PGA

The leaderboard was spinning like a raffle at Aronimink on Saturday, where at one point or another, almost every player in the field made a birdie putt to take a share of the lead, then a bogey putt to let it go again. When the drum finally stopped spinning, Alex Smalley, a 29-year-old from North Carolina who has never won a professional golf tournament, was atop the leaderboard at six under, two shots out of a five-way tie for second place. No disrespect to Smalley, the world number 78, but players are lining up like bowling balls on the rack waiting to take on him on Sunday.

Philadelphia loves an underdog, but it’s probably best for the trumpeter to wait another day before belting out the first notes of the Rocky theme.

There are 21 players within four shots of the leader, and among them eight major champions. Jon Rahm, who has finally rediscovered his major touch, is in the closest group behind him at four under, and Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and Patrick Reed are all just one further back than that. It doesn’t stop there. Justin Rose, Martin Kaymer, Cameron Smith and Hideki Matsuyama are grouped on two under. Even Scottie Scheffler, whose ice-cold putter cost him a handful of birdies, can still imagine his chances with five shots to Smalley’s lead.

This is the most crowded major ranking in memory. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Scheffler said, “I’ve never seen seeding this close. It’s literally anyone’s tournament.”

Smalley was playing in the final pair, with Maverick McNealy, and until he pulled away with a birdie on the par-five 16th, he was in a six-way tie for first place. That would have broken the record before the final day of a major, breaking the five-way tie at the St Andrews Open in 1933. Instead, Smalley stands alone. This is the first time in his life that he has led 54 holes in a professional tournament. “I don’t really like being in the spotlight,” he said Friday night. “I’m still trying to get used to playing in front of large groups of people, as is the case at tournaments like this.”

He seems to be catching up with him. He played a hell of a trick on Saturday. He looked almost beside himself after making four bogeys in his first eight holes, but then went on to play the next 10 in five under.

Besides Åberg and Rahm, the group of five immediately behind him included England’s Aaron Rai, who managed to keep his score at five under until late in the afternoon until he made a terrible mess at the 18th, when he went from the rough on the left to a bunker on the right. It has been more than 100 years since an Englishman won this tournament, and Rai, 31, has a chance to break one of major golf’s longest spells. But there are a lot of people up there. By mid-afternoon, the situation was such that many players admitted that they had given up looking at the rankings.

“It’s so bunched up that it was kind of pointless,” said Canadian Nick Taylor, also at four under, and besides, the greens here are so nasty you couldn’t afford to take your eyes off them long enough to figure it out.

So a tournament that has been widely criticized by players for being so difficult could well end in one of the most extraordinary Sundays in major history. It helped that the sun was out and the wind had shifted so that some of the shorter par-four greens were accessible from the tee, but it was also true that after all the criticism they received from McIlroy and Scheffler about the fiendishly difficult pin positions the first two days, the tournament committee was a little more generous with its set-up.

On Friday, Scheffler called the pins “absurd” and McIlroy said they were “not great.” After scoring 66 points, the Northern Irishman explained that he was only expressing his pent-up irritation.

“When you have a set of greens like this, you can start to frustrate people pretty easily,” McIlroy said. “You heard it at my house last night, you heard it in Scottie. There were a lot of frustrated guys yesterday coming off the course. But at the same time, it makes for a pretty damn entertaining championship. If I wasn’t playing this tournament, I would love what’s happening this week, but watching and playing are two different things.”

He was in a better mood on Saturday. “No profanity today,” McIlroy said as he walked in to speak to the press. Two days after his “shit” first-round performance, when he made four straight bogeys and was tied for 105th, McIlroy is back in contention. “I came out of that hole and I’m proud of myself for doing that,” McIlroy said. “There’s still a day left and I feel like I’m close enough to the lead to still have a good chance.” Him, and just about everyone else who owns a club.

“It is,” Schauffele said, “it will be an absolute scrum.”